Artists as diverse as Ashford and Simpson, Lena Horne, Del Marquis of the Scissor Sisters and Bread and Puppet Theater have all had the pleasure of being sung to, backed by or collaborating with Xavier Smith, a dreadlocked, extremely tall (6’6″) fixture on the downtown Manhattan performance circuit. For the past several years, Smith — who grew up in New York, has a gently soulful voice and prefers to be called simply “Xavier” (“with a hard X,” he notes, “like Ex-ayvier”) — has produced a Valentine’s song as a love letter to his friends, fans and whomever he might have been in love with that year. It started in 2004 with a cover of the Beatles’ “In My Life,” and this year’s offering is a heartbreaking rendition of Curtis Mayfield’s “The Makings of You” set to a small orchestral arrangement. From Bushwick, Brooklyn, where Xavier lives with Dima, his once-vicious but now sweet Himalayan blue-eyed cat, Xavier told T why he does the yearly Valentine’s song.

Q.

So first about your current domestic partner …

A.

Dima is a Russian boy’s name that means “strong fighter.” Dima drew blood from me twice when I got him. Five years later, we’re in a relationship. He shadows me. My roommate says that if I’m coming down the street singing, he comes to the window to wait for me. If I’ve been ignoring him for too long, he kind of grabs my arms and pulls them close to him. If I’m in the bathroom, I’ll see his little paw coming under the door. He doesn’t like to be alone.

That’s cute. I see you a lot on the street, and you like to walk around singing.

I do. People are like, “You better sing!” Once I was in Chelsea walking and singing “Searching” by Change featuring Luther Vandross, and this cute woman was walking alongside me so I shoved my arm in her arm and walked with her, acting out the song. She was grinning the whole way, to the end of the block. Then I met up with a friend and he said, “You are crazy.”

I was singing solos my first year. I didn’t know that was unusual until I got animosity from the other kids. But I wanted to learn everything; I was a sponge. Then I started performing in drag at Barracuda in Chelsea before I was even old enough to be in the bar.

How did the Valentine’s Day songs start?

In 2004, I just decided I wanted to record a song for my friends and send it out. The next year I got signed to Virgin and I did Kenny Rogers’s “Lucille.” In 2006 I got disillusioned with the industry and didn’t do one. The year 2007 is the most popular one, a cover of Randy Newman’s “Baltimore.” A friend made me bang it out. I hate it. It’s such a downer; I kept thinking, Really? Is the place [Baltimore] that bad? But I do I.T. work to support myself, including for [the fashion photographer] Marc Baptiste, and he loved it and offered to shoot a video for it, which I’ll put out sometime this year. We shot it in Baltimore. Well, yes, the place is as terrible as the song says. We put real hookers in the video and gave them free copies of the song to thank them. Marc didn’t let me eat or sleep because he wanted me to look upset in the video. Everyone in the ‘hood clustered around, watching me like I was a star, and I felt like a jerk talking about how hard it is to live in this neighborhood.

What about this year’s lovely Curtis Mayfield cover?

I did the arrangement and had some klezmer musician friends from Luminescent Orchestrii record it with me. This song is saying, “In case you didn’t know, you’re a wonderful manifestation of a human being.” You’re telling someone you love them without having to say it.

Who’d you record it for?

Someone I unexpectedly cared for really deeply but I’m not saying who. The musicians don’t even know. But the person knows about the song and likes it, even though I’m not seeing them now. It’s complicated.

What are you doing Valentine’s Day?

Go to a brass-band thing at Mercury Lounge. Then hang out with the bass player. We’re just friends. We’re having dinner. I was like, “Oh, I’m free Monday,” and he was like, “Oh, I see what Monday is. Why don’t we do it Tuesday?” And I said, “Let’s just do it Monday, it doesn’t have to be loaded.”